


Nothing By Halves

by TheSigyn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-06
Updated: 2012-03-06
Packaged: 2018-04-15 13:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4607904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River Song does nothing by halves. She doesn’t feel by halves, or love by halves, or despair by halves. And when she gives up, she’s given up completely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing By Halves

**Author's Note:**

> We see lots of times when the Doctor knows less than River. We don’t see many instances where River knows less than the Doctor. This story is an attempt to remedy that. The Doctor is WELL past the Lake Silencio incident. River is still at college.

  
  
The note read:   
  
_River. I know I said I’d take you to see Boshane, but something’s come up. The application has finally been accepted. I’m a Time Agent! Ironically, they don’t leave you time to clear up loose ends, so this is all the goodbye I’ll have time to give you.  
  
It’s been a great few weeks, hasn’t it? Sorry it has to end so abruptly. Take this as my goodbye kiss, and if I’m ever back in the era, I’ll try and look you up.   
  
_

_J._

  
  
  
  
River stared at the note in disbelief. She was dressed for the beach, with an overnight pack on her shoulder, ready to spend the break with her latest boyfriend at his home peninsula, and she had just been...   
  
_She’d just been stood up._  
  
Her. She, River Song, had just been stood up by some arrogant college kid.  
  
It wasn’t that she had any great affection for Jay. He wasn’t the love of her life, or even half as intelligent as she was. But he was sexually rapacious and a lot of fun to be around. He was one of the few men she’d ever managed to land who wasn’t exhausted by her within a matter of hours. It was why their relationship had lasted more than a week. She’d known he was applying to the Time Agency, which was one of the other reasons she was dating him. She’d thought he might be able to bring her with him — or if all else failed, that she could use his connections to steal a wrist strap and maybe track down some of the leads she’d found on the Doctor. But apparently not.  
  
She’d even _opened up to him!_ She’d told him about Daleks and the twentieth century and that Time Lords weren’t mythical. For crying out loud, she’d taught him how to shoot straight! And he’d gone off and _dumped_ her? By _letter?_ HOW DARE HE!?   
  
River sat in the rubble of her dorm room at the college for a good hour after her rant. She wanted Amy. That’s what she would have done if she’d still been on Earth — go find Amy and Rory and complain about the uselessness of men. She felt so damned lonely she could kill someone. How dare they bloody abandon her _again!_   
  
And there it was. All over again. The abandonment issue. She’d been wrestling with it for the last eight months. Well, all her life, but the last eight months had been adding insult to injury. Eight months without Amy. Eight months without Rory. Eight months without the home she’d grown... well, not to love, but certainly grown used to. She was all alone in this era. All she had left was the memory of the Doctor and a stupid blue book.   
  
God, she felt lonely. No one at the academy liked her. She was regarded with fear and envy, even by the professors. She’d grown so used to having friends. Okay, so they were her parents, but they were friends. Life was very different when you really were all alone.   
  
She opened up her notebook and read, for the thousandth time, the messages left by Amy, Rory and the Doctor. Amy’s letter was long, filled with unconditional love and unrestrained sorrow. Rory’s message was filled with pride, and just a touch of longing — he’d always wanted kids, and it seemed like he’d missed his chance.   
  
The Doctor’s message was terse. Considering she’d just blown her regenerations on him — literally— she thought it was something of a letdown. He could have said _thank you._ All he had written was three words. Three words in ancient Galifrayen — a language she’d known the moment she stepped into the Tardis. Three terse, unfeeling, cryptic little words.   
  
_Catch you later._  
  
“What the f —...!” She went on for some minutes, cursing in more and more inventive languages until she felt the paint in her walls begin to crinkle in shame. She was so damned bored. What was she supposed to do, just sit here and wait for something to happen? Well, screw that.   
  
She was done. It didn’t matter how many classes she was passing with flying colors. It didn’t matter how many shades of history she had uncovered about the Doctor. It didn’t matter how many languages she knew, or how many sports contests she could win, or how quickly she was earning her PhD. She’d been abandoned again, by the Doctor and by Rory and Amy and now — such a small thing, but every straw matters on the camel — by Jay. Did anyone think she was worth anything? She’d grown up believing she was special, told again and again by those who were raising her that she was the chosen one. Okay, so she had been chosen to kill, but it was still something special. Now she was just jetsam, tossed out with the garbage, and she was supposed to do something with it. Alone.  
  
Well, fine. She’d show them. She’d show all of them. Especially the Doctor!   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
The winds atop Perpetuum Tower were fierce. The college’s main focal point, this gorgeous neo-gothic monolith, dominated the skyline of the city with near phallic significance. River breathed in the chilly air, just starting to grow thin at this height. This would do. This would do admirably.   
  
It wasn’t the first time River had contemplated suicide. It wasn’t the first time she’d stood atop some tower or stared at a gun or studied some virulent poison, considering what would happen if she’d just let it take her. But she’d always been aware of the fact that the suicide wouldn’t work. She’d just regenerate into some other body, and have to start her hell of an existence _all over again._ She supposed she could have just kept killing herself until all her regenerations had run out, but she was pretty sure her resolve wouldn’t last beyond a single death. She didn’t _like_ dying. It wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted to do a dozen times in succession.  
  
But this was the first time she’d considered it while she possessed only one life. For the last eight months she’d felt very naked and soft. It was an uncomfortably vulnerable feeling. Oddly enough, it had imbued her with a compassion she’d never felt before. As she’d wandered through the hospital, and then the college, she’d looked into the eyes of everyone she met, and thought — they have only one life. When the light goes out of those eyes, it’s gone forever. The callous thought — oh, I could just kill them — had completely faded from her mind. She’d spent her whole life thinking that. Now life was a precious thing, and she couldn’t just waste it.   
  
Except her own. Her own was hers, to dispose of as she pleased. Still. She couldn’t just end it, not like that. Somehow, she had to apologize. Even if only in her own mind. She knew she’d be disappointing Amy and Rory. Though actually... Rory might understand. He’d seen everything in his long life. But Amy... No. Amy wouldn’t be able to accept it. She took her laserblade out of her pocket and scrawled the words “I’m sorry,” on the nearest gargoyle. She’d written them in the first language that came to mind, which happened to be Gallifrayen. She remembered such a message wouldn’t ever be understood. She added, “I’m sorry, Amy,” in English below it. Maybe the words would pass through time and resonate in her mother’s unique, rift poisoned mind.   
  
Maybe she was also apologizing to the Doctor. She didn't want to admit that, but.... Well.   
  
River stood bravely on the edge of the guard rail, letting the wind blow over her. The sun was setting beautifully on the horizon. That would do. The end of the day would be the last sight in her eyes. She clutched her book tightly to her breast, and took a deep breath. She was shaking all through, but River never backed down from fear. _Never run when you’re afraid._ Oh, shut up, Doctor. I don’t want to hear your lovely voice just now.   
  
Deliberately, slowly, River closed her eyes and stepped off the edge of the building.   
  
And fell.   
  
  
***  
  
  
She’d gone barely fifteen feet before her feet struck impact. She opened her eyes in shock, amazed at how fast the fall had been, but then the water tension broke under her weight, and she found herself swimming. Oddly, the first thought in her mind was, “My book!” and she fought her way to the surface, trying to get it out of the water before it got too damaged.   
  
The water around her was clear and blue, and not too cold. River splashed along, staring in shock at the decor. The walls were punctuated by regular decorative circles. Potted plants and Roman columns dotted the tiled floor. A diving board thrust itself out over the water, and several metal ladders allowed easy access to the ground. She was most clearly in a swimming pool.  
  
“What the—!” River swore and splashed to one of the ladders. Ruddy light glowed from above, and she looked up. A rectangular hatch stood open in the ceiling, and through it she could glimpse the top of Perpetuum Tower, nowhere near as far away as it should have been if she’d hit the ground.  
  
River dragged herself gasping onto the tiles and shook her head. What the hell had happened? A passing ship? The chances against it were astronomical. Oddly, the feeling most prevalent in her mind was annoyance. Now she’d have to gird her loins up again and try to commit suicide some other time.   
  
She supposed if she was really all that keen to kill herself, all she’d have to do was grab one of the decorative potted plants and pin herself down in the bottom of the swimming pool, but that sounded like a very unpleasant sort of death, which she might well chicken out on. Not like the sweet falling and sudden sharp shock of a high jump off a building.   
  
How was she was not dead? She knew death — she hadn’t died. This was not the afterlife. How had this happened? River shook off her book and opened it, checking to see the extent of damage. The pages were going to warp, that was clear, but it had been pretty tightly closed, and the middle of the book was still dry. Now she had to figure out where she was.   
  
It didn’t take more than another second. A door across from her opened, and in poked a smiling face with a ridiculous bow tie. “Honestly, what are you so sorry about?” he asked blithely. He looked at her, wet and bedraggled from the pool. “You look like a drowned rat.”   
  
The Doctor turned his back to leave, and rage surged through her. She threw the only thing that came to hand — her book. It sailed beautifully through the air and connected with the back of his head with a sharp _thwack!_  
  
Ten minutes later the two of them stalked back into the control room, still not on speaking terms. River was dressed in a robe she’d found by the pool, and the Doctor sported a striped bandage round his head. The stripes were supposed to disappear as the medicine infused in the bandage took effect. By the time the stripes were gone, the nasty goose egg he was sporting should have been healed. He was still resentful about it, though.  
  
“What the hell did you have to do that for?” she asked.   
  
“Me?” The Doctor glared at her. “I didn’t throw it!”   
  
“I meant, show up and ruin my jump!” River shouted.   
  
“What, I wasn’t late, was I?” the Doctor asked. He indicated a weather worn gargoyle which was lying by the side of the console. “It’s kind of hard to date test laserblade residue. Next time, by the way, a date would be really helpful.” He paused and checked his watch. “And a time,” he added. “I was cutting it close, wasn’t I?” He tapped the watch a couple times and shrugged. “Sorry.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Still don’t think a ten second delay merited _that!_ I think you’re being a little unfair!”   
  
“What are you _talking_ about?”  
  
The Doctor paused. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“I’m talking about you getting in the way of my suicide.”   
  
The Doctor blinked at her. “What would you want to do a thing like that for?” he asked, truly perplexed.   
  
“Because I...” River found herself at a loss for words. “Wh.... i... it doesn’t matter! It was mine!”  
  
The Doctor stared at her for a long moment and then said, “Oi, River.” He did a double take. “When are you?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“What are we up to? When is it? Where are you?”   
  
River was somewhat confused. “The college just began spring break. Why?”   
  
“Yes, but where are we?” he asked. He pulled out a book that looked suspiciously like hers from a little cubby in the console. “You have Lake Silencio?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Apparently not. Oh, boy, that explains it. You’re _such_ hard work young.”  
  
“You have a book like mine!” River grabbed for it, and the Doctor pulled it out of her reach.   
  
“No! You’re not allowed to look in the book!”  
  
“What? Why not?”   
  
“It’s against the rules. Rule 17. Or is it rule 34? Am I still making up rules for you? Anyway, don’t look in the book.” He slid it back into the cubby and slapped it shut. River looked, but there didn’t seem to be any sign that there was ever an opening in the console.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Spoilers.”   
  
“What are you talking about?”   
  
“Sit down,” he said.   
  
“No.”   
  
“Sit down!”   
  
River jumped. When the Doctor barked an order, it had weight. River backed up until her feet hit a step, and she sat down, not entirely voluntarily. The Doctor knelt down in front of her and took both her hands, turning them over as if inspecting them for cuts. Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him. He held her hands gently and looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked seriously.   
  
The tenderness in his words was like a blade. River flinched. _No!_ she wanted to say. _No, I’m not okay! I’m lonely and I’m frightened and I don’t know what to do!_ Instead she snatched her hands back from his tender hold — oh, her hands felt cold now that they were out of his! — and wrapped them firmly around herself, hiding them under her arms. “I’m fine.”   
  
The Doctor regarded her for a long moment. “You’re not fine,” he said quietly. “You’re a young girl, and you’re terribly frightened.”  
  
“I am not a little girl!” River snapped.   
  
“Did I say little?” the Doctor asked. He stood up and went to the console. “Where do you want to go?”   
  
“What?”   
  
He grinned at her, his maniacal enthusiasm burbling through him. “Spring break, ready for the hols. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. All of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will, right outside those doors, all waiting for you.” He turned his eyes on her, and they were shining. “Where do you want to go?”   
  
River said the first thing that popped into her head. “The Boshane Peninsula.”   
  
To River’s satisfaction, the Doctor blinked. “Why would you want to go there?”   
  
“Because that’s where I was _supposed_ to be going before my lying, ass licking, pus-sucking, mirror-obsessed penguin groper of a boyfriend stood me up!”  
  
The Doctor scratched his head. “Boyfriend?”   
  
“Not anymore.”   
  
“Don’t suppose you have a picture of him?” he asked absently.   
  
River suddenly remembered she did, and at the same time realized she didn’t want it. She opened her notebook and pulled the photograph off the page she had stuck it on. She crumpled it up and threw it at the Doctor’s head. It bounced off his forehead, but he caught it after that. The Doctor uncrumpled it and burst into laughter. “Hi, there,” he said to himself. “It would be.” He flattened the photo between his hands and then slid it back between the pages of her book. “Keep that. You’ll meet him again some day.”   
  
“How do you know?”   
  
“Well, I don’t,” the Doctor admitted. “But he’ll have plenty of time to make amends to you. If it helps at all, he’s off to a very unpleasant few millennium. Next time you see him, say hi.”   
  
“Next time I see him, I’ll kill him!”   
  
“He won’t mind,” the Doctor said with a grin. “Boshane Peninsula it is!” He stabbed a few of the controls on the console.  
  
“What are you doing?”   
  
“Going to the Boshane Peninsula.”   
  
“You’re just hitting random controls and hoping it works!” River cried out. She jumped up and pushed him off the console. “Is this how you always fly this thing?”  
  
“I’ve been flying this Tardis for more than seven hundred years, thank you very much.”   
  
“If you’ve been flying it like that, it’s a wonder you haven’t blown the thing up!”   
  
“Well, I have. But that’s a long story, and you can’t know most of it. Give me back my console.”   
  
“No!”   
  
The Doctor sighed, crossed his arms, and stood back. “Fine. Fine, have it your way.”   
  
River glanced at him. She’d expected more of a fight. Instead she smoothly glided the Tardis over to the Boshane Peninsula. Rather than deal with the chill of spring, she even tweaked the time rotor and brought them to someplace near the beginning of summer. The Tardis settled neatly, and River could feel a certain hum of pride. There were no words to it, but it was something like, _That’s my girl._ She closed her eyes. It was the Tardis. The Tardis loved her, or felt something as close to love as a completely alien mind ever could. River suddenly felt like she belonged. From feeling completely hopeless and utterly out of place, River’s entire being had settled. With the Tardis under her hands and the Doctor standing behind her, the idea of committing suicide seemed absolutely absurd.  
  
The Doctor opened the doors on a sunset a hundred times more gorgeous than the one over the academy. The beach was almost empty, only a few stragglers walking more than half a mile distant. The sun was a brilliant orange, the sky fading to pink, and the sea reflected the colors ten fold. With an elegant bow, the Doctor invited her out.   
  
River slid past him and onto the sand. It was still warm from the sun, and felt luxurious under her bare feet. The Doctor followed her, closing the doors behind him, and took a deep breath of the sea air. “Nice little place,” he said. “Tourist town, though. Only gets big in the summers.”  
  
River walked a bit away from him. The sea was biting with little teeth at the shoreline, and the seagulls were beginning their sunset choir. It was beautiful, but it was nothing that should have affected her the way it did. River was cold and unresponsive and emotionless. The only things she ever felt were lust and anger, punctuated by bouts of wicked glee and occasional despair. The gentle peacefulness of the scene should only have elicited boredom.   
  
Suddenly she was fighting back tears.   
  
The Doctor put his arms around her, and to her own surprise, she let him. But it didn’t stop her crying. If anything, it made it worse. She shuddered in his embrace, her cheek pressed against his shirt, her tears making a wet patch. “It’s all right,” he whispered.   
  
“No, it’s not,” she found herself saying. “It’s never all right. I’m all wrong. I’m not anything, I never fit. Everyone hates me at the academy. I’m not really human, and they’re scared, and I don’t blame them. I scare myself. Sometimes when I’m angry I still want to kill people. But they’re people!” She sobbed. “And I don’t want to care about them, but I do! And I don’t want to care what they think. But I’m all alone. I miss Amy and Rory and even goddamned Leadworth, and I’m brilliant and strong and there’s nothing I can’t do, except fit!” She pulled away. “And then he had to go and dump me!” she growled. “I don’t even give a snit about him, but it’s just driving home the uselessness of everything. I’m always going to be alone, and I’m never going to fit!”   
  
“You fit somewhere.”   
  
“Yeah, bull,” River snapped. “I’d like to see you face down the laughter as everyone at the academy makes faces behind your back.”   
  
“I’d have liked it if you’d seen that, too,” the Doctor said. “I would have felt less alone.”   
  
River had already opened her mouth to dismiss what he’d said before she really heard it. She blinked. The Doctor reached out and cradled her face, wiping one of her tears off with his thumb. “Locus points of the universe have a way of not belonging,” he said. “It’s because the universe belongs to them. Not the other way ‘round.”   
  
“Why are you being so nice to me?”  
  
He shrugged. “I owe you my life.”   
  
River shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. There are thousands of people who have saved your life. You don’t go interfering with their suicides.”   
  
The Doctor got an amused look on his face. “And how do you know that?”   
  
“Research.”   
  
“Hearsay,” he said dismissively.   
  
“Am I wrong?”   
  
The Doctor hesitated.   
  
“Don’t lie to me.”   
  
He chuckled, then he sighed. “River,” he said, straightening the lapels on her robe. “If you haven’t figured out yet that you’re special to me, I’m going to lose all faith in that intellect of yours.”   
  
River only then realized she was still wearing only a rather scanty robe. “Oh, my god!” she said suddenly, and headed back to the Tardis.   
  
“What?” the Doctor asked.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me?” River called back.   
  
“Tell you what?”   
  
“Oh, shut up,” River said, and pounded on the door. To her surprise, it opened. The Doctor followed her in, chuckling. “You have absolutely _no_ sense of propriety, do you!”   
  
“None,” the Doctor said blithely. He eyed her long legs appreciatively.  
  
“Take your eyes off me.”   
  
“Can’t.”  
  
“Well, at least have the decency to look at my face!”  
  
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Now, do you really want me decent?” he asked.   
  
River regarded him. God, he was hot. And that was _definitely_ a flirt. No way she was going to let that pass. “No,” she said suddenly. “I just want you.” And she pounced.   
  
“Woah!” the Doctor pulled back. “Woah, wow, wait, hey, just... stop!” he said, pushing her away in a desperate dog paddle. He finally held her off with one hand and stared at her across the length of his arm. “Slow down.”   
  
“I don’t want to,” she said, sidestepping his arm and going after him again.   
  
“This isn’t right!”   
  
“Aww, Doctor, you’re not going to say you only believe in sex after marriage, are you?” She grinned. “That’s easily fixed.”   
  
“Stop it!” he said, almost angrily.   
  
“Why?” He paused, and she took another step forward. “Are you seriously going to tell me you don’t want me? Come on, Sweetie. What’s all this about, then?”  
  
The Doctor looked flustered. “It’s very hard to explain.”  
  
“I’m clever, and I’ll get it.” She sidled up to him and grabbed hold of his jacket. “I don’t think it’ll even take any words.” She pressed her lips to his furiously, and was rewarded by a good five seconds before the Doctor pushed her away.   
  
“Now, now just wait a minute,” he said.  
  
“Give me something,” River said with seductive purr. “You owe me your life, right?”   
  
“Now, that’s just not fair,” the Doctor stammered. “If I pulled that on a woman it would be sexual harassment.”   
  
River paused and looked at him. “So what is this about?”  
  
“It’s about you,” the Doctor said sternly. “It’s about you, and fixing whatever they did to you.”   
  
“Fixing me?” River pulled back. “ _Fixing_ me, like I’m some animal?”   
  
The Doctor threw up his hands. “Healing you, then!”   
  
“I’m not sick!”   
  
“Tell that to the Tardis,” the Doctor said.   
  
River paused and looked up. The Tardis wasn’t communicating with her just then. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Why do you think you were able to tell Amy and Rory who you were?” the Doctor said, using the opportunity to put the console between himself and River. “It was because you’d been in the Tardis. She’d done as much as she could to break the conditioning the Silence left you with. But she couldn’t finish.”  
  
“Why not?”   
  
“Because you shot her!” the Doctor snapped.   
  
“Well... I can fly her now, so she’s finished, right? She must be.”  
  
“I don’t know. The Tardis has done all she can, but there’s still more to do.”   
  
“I’m just fine.”   
  
“Then why are you trying to kill yourself?”   
  
That stopped River short.  
  
“River?”   
  
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. It had seemed to make sense at the time. Now... she couldn’t really remember what she’d been thinking. It seemed ridiculous. “I think I was lonely,” she admitted.   
  
The Doctor’s panicked look faded, and he looked at her sadly. “I understand that,” he said. “But jumping in bed with anyone who comes within arm’s reach is not going to fix that.”   
  
“You’re not anyone,” River said reasonably. “You’re the Doctor. My Doctor.”  
  
“And you barely know me yet,” the Doctor pointed out.   
  
River thought about this for a moment. Then she shook her head. “I’ve known you all my life,” she said quietly. “And that bow tie is _not_ cool,” she added.   
  
The Doctor threw up his hands as if he was giving up and slouched down into one of the seats by the wall. River came up to him and slid her hand around his neck, pulling him close. “Come on, Doctor,” she said, her voice husky and seductive. “Just give me a few glorious minutes, and we’ll see if what I’m feeling is real.”   
  
The Doctor pulled away from her attempt at a kiss. “First off, it wouldn’t be a few minutes,” he said. “And secondly, that’s not the way to figure anything out.” He slid out from beneath her.   
  
“How would you know?” River asked, pouncing after him again. “Have you ever tried it?”   
  
“I’m well over a thousand years old, thank you very much, I’ve tried just about everything!” the Doctor cried in a panic.   
  
“Well, then, you’ll know what you’re doing,” River smirked.  
  
“Yes, but you don’t!”  
  
“I think I can figure it out.”   
  
“I’m not human!” the Doctor cried, pushing her off him again.   
  
“Neither have half of my lovers been these last eight months,” River said, pulling up his shirt. “You didn’t dump me in the fiftieth century for nothing, Sweetie.”   
  
“I’d much rather you had some idea what you were doing!”  
  
“And I’m telling you, I’ll figure it out as we go along.” She reached her face up to kiss him.   
  
To her surprise, the Doctor grabbed her, turned her, taking the dominant position. He pushed her onto the ground against the wall, and her heart thudded. His face was so near and his breath was so hot. The clear lust in his eyes was unmistakable. He held her firmly, his body an eloquent promise as he hovered over her. “You’re not ready for me yet,” he said darkly. His eyes flickered over her face and down her half open robe. “As much as I might wish you were,” he added. He kissed her forehead hard and thrust himself away, throwing himself to the floor with a heavy sigh. He eyed her with dark frustration.   
  
River’s insides were still holding a Samba class to the rhythm of her heart, and her hands were shaking. The heat she had seen in his face was remarkable, given how adamantly he had just seen her off. “What do you mean, yet?” she asked, and was glad her voice was steady.   
  
The Doctor shook his head and looked away from her.   
  
“What’s in that book?” she said. “The one that looks like mine?”   
  
He closed his eyes. “This is why I never come to see you when you’re so young. You can’t behave yourself!”  
  
River raised her eyebrows at his accusing finger. “Where’s the fun in that?”  
  
The Doctor rolled his eyes and stood up. He started poking at the console. River came up behind him. “You want me,” she said quietly. “I can see it in your eyes. You wanted me, like this. River Song. Well, I became this. I became River. For you.”   
  
“You’re not there yet,” the Doctor muttered.   
  
The first sensation was pain and rejection, slicing through her chest like a blade. The second was fury, bubbling up from the wound like lava. The second feeling won out. The slap rang loudly through the console room.  
  
The Doctor staggered back from the console, cradling his cheek with a whimper. “What was that for?!”  
  
“What am I? Some dog you have to train? Some clay figure you have to shape and mold and fire until I match _your_ expectations of me?”   
  
“River—”  
  
“Don’t call me that!” River shouted, though she felt dishonest. For the last eight months had been River, and the name had fit, and she’d loved it. “All my life people have been training me and shaping me and conditioning me into what _they_ thought I should be! I’m not about to start taking it from you! I’ll kill you first!”   
  
“I know.”   
  
The simple words froze her in her fury. She wished she hadn’t said it, and his simple acceptance of her threat terrified her. “What?”   
  
He let go his cheek — the bright red mark was the shape of her hand, with a hard border of white. She’d hit him very hard. “I know better than to try and control you, River.” He closed his eyes. “Melody.” He swallowed and stared at her earnestly. “I know who you are. And it’s not at all who I’d want you to be — believe me, I wouldn’t have begun to choose that! I can’t shape you or train you. I wouldn’t even try. I almost feel sorry for anyone who ever did.” He shook his head. “Melody Pond. Seven years old, tearing through metal and mesh, like a butterfly from a chrysalis. How many did you kill, escaping from that place?”   
  
River stared at him, shaking, but she wasn’t sure why. “I can’t remember.” All she remembered was Amy screaming and the rage and the fear and the escape, and the alien blood on her hands as she ran through the darkness away from that terrible orphanage.   
  
He shook his head. “How could you? But I know they didn’t just let you go.” He gazed at her, almost smiling. “Who would ever just let you go?”  
  
“I’ll never let anyone hold me prisoner again,” she said, her throat tight with emotion.   
  
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “No one could ever hold you, unless you let them.”   
  
Her voice sounded very small. “I’m trying to let you.”   
  
The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, and he sighed. “Oh, River, River. Sorry. Melody.”  
  
“I don’t mind being River,” she said quietly. “I just don’t want you telling me I’m not finished yet.”   
  
“Oh, you’ll use the same words about me,” the Doctor said with a rueful laugh.  
  
“There you go again. You talk about me as if you know me, but....”   
  
“We’re out of order,” the Doctor said. “We do know each other. We know each other very, very well. But our time lines are shuffled, like a deck of cards. The ace of spades next to the queen of hearts.” He glanced at the pocket of her robe, where River had stashed her notebook. “What have you been writing in your book?”   
  
“What, you want to read it?”   
  
“The only time I’ve ever looked in that book is when I gave it to you. And that’s the only time I ever will. Rule nine. Or something.” He shook his head. “Tell me. What have you been putting there?”   
  
She shrugged. “Research,” she said. “Notes, things I’ve learned.”   
  
“About what?”  
  
She knew he knew the answer. “About you!” she said, annoyed.  
  
He smiled, an annoyingly charming smile.   
  
“Oh, shut up.”   
  
But he didn’t stop grinning. “That’s what’s in the book,” he said. “Things about you. Mostly when we are, what we’re caught up on. On the whole, you’re much better at keeping yours up.”  
  
“I’ve barely filled ten pages.”   
  
His eyes were soft. “You’re young, yet.” He chuckled. “The books are very important. You can’t know your own future. And I can’t know mine. If we did, we’d change our behavior, get our fingers into the time stream, muck up the universe, blow it to kingdom come. Like the story of Oedipus and Jocasta.”   
  
“You are not my mother.”   
  
The Doctor chuckled, but he shook his head. “Trying to change the future is what brought it about,” he said. “That’s all I meant. We can’t change what’s meant to be, and we can’t know what it is, either.” He sighed. “So, we write it down, and check, to see what we’re allowed to talk about, the experiences we’ve both shared. Take today. I intend on calling this meeting the I’m Sorry incident. And when you next see me... I’m not entirely sure where I’ll be in your time line. But I’ll probably be younger than this. So, I won’t have had the I’m Sorry incident. So you won’t be able to tell me anything that happens between us right now.” He came up to her. “This is probably one of the few times I’ll be ahead of you.” He smirked. “It’s interesting, actually. Usually, you know more than I do. This is kind of fun.” Then he sobered. “And kind of frustrating. We tend to move backwards, you and I. Your lasts and my firsts.”   
  
Something dark passed through River then. “So... is this one of the last times you’ll see me? For you?”   
  
“I don’t know. All I know is, that I have seen you many, many, many times. And you have only seen me a few.” He reached out and touched her hair. “When I first met you... ah, River. You scared me half to death.”  
  
“Aren’t you telling me my future?” she asked.   
  
“We stretch it a little,” he admitted. “But you’ll notice, I’m not saying any details.”   
  
“So you’ve known me... you will know me.”   
  
He nodded. “I spent years running from you. No idea who you were. All I knew, was that you were astounding.” He smiled. “I had to stop running from you a long time ago.”   
  
“Then why are you running from me now?” River whispered.   
  
The Doctor sighed. “Believe me, I don’t want to.”   
  
“Really?” River asked. “Because it seems like you’re still frightened of me.”   
  
The Doctor pulled her closer. “Always,” he whispered. The kiss he gave her was tender, almost chaste, and it made her bones melt. She battled the sweetness and wrapped her arms around him, forcing his mouth into a passionate kiss, gnawing on his lips in desperation.  
  
“Stop,” he said again, pulling his head away.  
  
“I don’t want to!”   
  
He shook his head at her. “Are you that empty?”  
  
She blinked and considered. “No,” she finally said. “I’m that incomplete.”  
  
His eyes were soft as he gazed at her. “And that’s why I can’t.” He gave her one more soft peck, and let her go.  
  
Her mouth opened, realizing what she’d said. She wanted to tell him that wasn’t what she meant — that without him, she felt only half of herself. But she realized, if that was the case, then that was exactly what he meant. She needed to be complete _without_ him, first. She stood for a long moment, watching him as he puttered — pointlessly puttered, she realized — with the Tardis controls. He was just playing with them for something to do with his hands! And the absurdity of his actions made something flare through her. Something powerful. Not lust or rage or the madness inducing passion she’d been wrestling with all her life. No. This was something tender and affectionate. It was almost, she realized, like the unconditional fondness that she felt for Rory, or for Amy. But different. Stronger, even.   
  
She didn’t want to name it, but the word came unbidden. She loved him. She really did. It wasn’t just obsession or conditioning or lust or desire for what he meant and what he could do for her. She loved him, in all his absurdity, with his flustered terror of intimacy and his capricious audacity and his ridiculous bow tie. He made her _happy_. Not the things he did, just him. She didn’t need to get him into bed. She had him already. He was _right here,_ beside her. That was all she needed.   
  
Whether she knew it or not, another layer of pain slipped away in that moment, and she was one step closer to being the River Song he thought he knew.   
  
She chuckled. “All right.” She gave up. “Fine.” She slid up beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist — under his jacket, but she didn’t go any further. “Take me somewhere fun,” she said gently. “You know the universe. Take me with you.”   
  
She was rewarded with a charming smile and eyes as bright as the stars. And for the first time in her life, River blushed like an innocent.   
  
  
***  
  
"What have you been doing this break?"  
  
"An awful lot of running," River said with a laugh. When she'd come back to school after spring break, River was tan and sun-bleached and happy. Her neighbor across the hall commented on it when she saw River come out of her room on the first day of the Spring term, laden with books. “Great Green Arkleseizure! You do nothing by halves, do you. How many classes are you _taking_ this term?”  
  
“Twenty-seven,” River said blithely. “Or is it twenty-two? I can’t remember if I chose the Left Spiral Arm History series or not.”  
  
“You’re going to break your brain taking on that kind of load,” she said. She picked up the book atop the pile absently. “And your arms carrying these around! I can’t even read this! What language is it?”   
  
“Oh, that’s not for a class. That’s some recreational reading I picked up in my favorite library over Spring Break. It’s just light research, but it’s important to know how things work. You’re right. I do nothing by halves.”   
  
“What the hell is it?”   
  
River flashed her a wicked grin. “ _Sexual Behavior of the Gallifrayen Male._ ”  
  
“What the hell are you supposed to do with that?”  
  
“Well, nothing.” River chuckled and pulled the book out of her hands. “Yet.” 


End file.
